


Prometheus on the Rock

by Crown_of_Winterthorne



Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: A tiny bit of smut, Blanket Fic, Established Relationship, Fluff, Light Angst, Lighthouses, M/M, Post-Series, Preventers Era, and North Atlantic Storms, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-04
Updated: 2017-01-04
Packaged: 2018-09-14 16:22:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9192587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crown_of_Winterthorne/pseuds/Crown_of_Winterthorne
Summary: A different kind of blanket fic, where the only vacation a couple of Preventers can get is being stationed on a lonely lighthouse in the middle of the North Atlantic. Duo isn't fond of the cold or the storms, but heisawfully fond of Trowa.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ClaraxBarton](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ClaraxBarton/gifts).



> Birthday Fic for Clara, requested by Maeve Mauvaise. Happy birthday, my dear! I'm so happy that I could write something for you, and I hope you like it!
> 
> Inspired by [this image](https://68.media.tumblr.com/a14ecccda2fe76261a001cd63a21dc31/tumblr_nrfo4jNTr81sh3d3po1_500.jpg) on Tumblr.

> _A new Prometheus, chained upon the rock,_  
>  _Still grasping in his hand the fire of Jove,_  
>  _It does not hear the cry, nor heed the shock,_  
>  _But hails the mariner with words of love._  
>    
>  _"Sail on!" it says, "sail on, ye stately ships!_  
>  _And with your floating bridge the ocean span;_  
>  _Be mine to guard this light from all eclipse,_  
>  _Be yours to bring man nearer unto man!"_
> 
> _—“_ [ _The Lighthouse_ ](http://www.hwlongfellow.org/poems_poem.php?pid=116) _,” Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 1850_
> 
>  

* * *

 

Duo was never sure if he loved or hated Earth’s weather. The wild and unpredictable storms of the northern coastlines were nothing like the rare and controlled rains on the colonies, but there was no substitute for natural sunshine and fresh air either. He liked that there was snow, but he yearned for the warmth of the South Seas where he had first come to Earth. The only thing that made the cold bearable was the man beside him, dressed in flannel and carrying a weatherbeaten satchel. The ship that had dropped them off was already a speck in the distance, eager to return to safer harbors.

“I still say this is punishment,” Duo complained, looking up at the lighthouse perched on the cliffside. The red and white paint was nearly worn away by the vicious salt spray and thundering waves, leaving it grey and foreboding. “Aren’t we a little too valuable to waste babysitting some outpost in the middle of nowhere?”

“I’m sure it’s not.” Trowa walked out onto the slick rocks, hands in his pockets like he didn’t care about the danger—Duo had known him long enough to know that he didn’t—watching the storm come in over the grey seas with an eager look in his eyes. He didn’t have the same qualms that Duo did about the weather. Sometimes he thought that Trowa liked it that way, and the more violent, the better.

Lightning flashed some miles away, the dark clouds glowing white and purple with every burst of electricity. The thunder was either too far away to be heard or drowned by the waves. Duo didn’t really like that last option.

“We should get up to the house before the storm hits,” he said, tugging his hood up over his head. His braid made it a little difficult, even when he pulled it forward over his shoulder. Thick hair could be a curse at times. “Sally promised it was supplied for three weeks, but I wanna make sure of that myself before communication gets knocked out.”

“It’s fine. She wouldn’t send us out here unprepared,” Trowa’s low voice was nearly lost to the ocean. His hair whipped across his face and he had to force it back with one hand, leaving both eyes bare and unobscured. Even from a distance, Duo was struck by the glass green color.

“Then how about ‘I’m fucking freezing, let’s get inside and start a fire.’”

Trowa’s laughter was unexpected and bright enough to chase away Duo’s irritation. Mostly.

He picked his way back across the rocky outcropping, taking Duo’s gloved hand when it was close enough to offer and keeping it tightly in his own as they hiked up the footpath to the lighthouse.

The tower was at least a couple hundred years old, built well before the first colony was ever put into space, but it was outfitted with modern systems to keep the light running, even without a keeper. Duo wondered for possibly the hundredth time why they had been sent there in the first place. It was of no strategic value to Preventers or anyone else. It was just something that had been inherited along with the rest of the old Alliance and OZ outposts. The light was only kept running for the sake of stray cargo ships who found themselves lost away from the shipping lanes.

The living quarters were in the attached building, a few decades newer and just as well-renovated. At least on the inside. Outside, the weather had abused the white paint and although the roof looked to be new, there were already a few shingles that had been torn off in the last storm. It was just large enough for two keepers or perhaps a young family of three or four, with a pair of small bedrooms and a living room that also served as a dining space.

It didn’t take long for the fireplace to warm the small building and the gas stove heated water quickly for coffee—of which there was plenty in the well-stocked pantry. Soon the entire building smelled of rich, fresh coffee and burning pine. Curled up in a blanket next to Trowa, Duo had to admit that it wasn’t so bad after all. Maybe.

“I told you,” Trowa wrapped his arm around Duo’s shoulders, pulling him more closely against his chest. “We’ll hardly have to do anything while we’re here. Just consider it a vacation.”

“Vacation is the wrong word,” Duo held his coffee mug tighter. He was wearing black fingerless gloves and the sleeves of his sweater half-covered his hands, yet they were still cold. “Vacation involves liquor and coconuts and sand in inconvenient places.”

“I may have smuggled a bottle of whiskey out of Zechs’ office before we left,” he said with a smile, “and I think there was some sand on the south side of the island. I can’t do anything about the coconuts though, unless there’s a bag of the shredded stuff in the pantry.”

Duo made a face. “Don’t even joke about a thing like that, babe. Jesus. ‘Shredded coconut.’ Y’know, Quat tried to warn me about your sick sense of humor, but would I listen? Nooo.”

“Does this mean you don’t want the whiskey either?”

“Hell, no. Irish up my coffee ‘til I pass out.”

“That won’t take long.”

“I’m not that much of a lightweight!”

“I’ll remember that next time New Year’s comes around.”

“Why am I dating you again?” Duo gave him a side-eyed glare.

Trowa kissed him, tipping his chin up with one finger and licking at the seam of his lips until Duo granted him entrance. He slid his tongue against Duo’s, twining them together until Duo pulled back with a breathless smile that couldn’t quite be suppressed.

“Oh, right. That’s why.”

“Pretty sure that’s not the only reason,” Trowa smirked, adding a final kiss to the corner of his mouth.

“No,” he agreed. “You can reach stuff on the top shelf too.”

Duo was pretty sure that if he hadn’t been holding a nearly full cup of coffee, Trowa would have either whacked him with a pillow or tickled him until he screamed for mercy.

“So,” he said quickly, before Trowa could decide to do it anyway, “what kind of entertainment do we have to stay busy here? Aside from sex, I mean.”

Trowa snorted with amusement at that.

There was electricity, and a propane generator for the lighthouse in case of a power outage, but there was no signal for Internet. Even the phones relied on satellite, which would be of little use once the storms rolled in. For someone as prone to boredom as Duo, there were more reasons to dread the assignment than because of the shitty weather. He couldn’t imagine that Trowa would enjoy being trapped with a bored version of him either.

“I saw some board games and a few packs of cards in the closet,” Trowa told him, “and we can watch movies as long as the power holds. If it doesn’t, I brought a couple of books.”

Duo smiled, unsurprised. He could probably guess which books, and more than likely there was a thick, worn out leather journal too. The pages were falling out and the cover stained with oil, blood and coffee, but Trowa had been writing in it since before Duo met him, rebinding it with new pages every so often. Duo still wasn’t sure what he did with the old pages, but he suspected that they might be in the lockbox at the very back of their closet.

He’d never asked to read them and Trowa had never offered, but for their first Christmas together, Duo had given him an expensive fountain pen. It was never far from the journal and the journal was never far from Trowa.

“Just like the old days then,” he said, leaning forward to set his coffee on the low table. He looped both arms around Trowa’s waist, cuddling closer and tucking his head beneath his chin. “I don’t miss them, but I miss being stuck in small, secluded places with you.”

Trowa stroked his hair, loosening it from the braid, and brought the blanket closer around them both. “So you wouldn’t be upset if I said I volunteered us for this?”

“Did you?”

“Yes.”

Duo considered it. Despite the fire, the blanket and Trowa, he was still cold. There was a violent North Atlantic storm rolling in. He was likely to go stir crazy before their two weeks were out and he was hoping that they didn’t need that extra week’s worth of supplies. But…

“No. I’m not upset,” he snuggled closer, flicking his eyes up at Trowa’s face, “but I get to pick next time. How are you not cold?”

Trowa was quiet and Duo felt him tense at the question. He kicked himself for asking. He knew better than to think it didn’t bother Trowa.

“Cold because of a storm is different than the cold of space,” Trowa finally said. “Weather is… alive. The Earth is. It’s not the same as an empty, dark vacuum.”

“Tro…”

“It’s okay,” he squeezed Duo. “Cold suits me.”

“No, it really doesn’t,” Duo shook his head. He crawled into Trowa’s lap, straddling his thighs and laying his hands on broad shoulders. He skimmed them up Trowa’s neck and into his hair, scratching soothingly at his scalp as he leaned forward, pressing their foreheads together. “You’re warm summer rain and sunsets by northern lakes, but you’re not cold.”

“That’s pretty poetic.”

“I have my moments.”

Trowa smiled and kissed him lightly. “Thank you.”

“Anytime, babe. You wanna pick a movie and I’ll fix dinner?” He looked over Trowa’s shoulder to the window, where increasingly choppy waves and gathering clouds loomed outside. “Before we lose power?”

“I’ll double check the lighthouse first,” he said, glancing over his shoulder into the storm. For the first time since the boat docked in the landing slip, he seemed concerned. “And the generators.”

 

* * *

 

 

The storm rolled in with swells that had Duo looking nervously out the darkened windows and Trowa telling him that they weren’t supposed to get much higher. That wasn’t quite as reassuring as he meant it to be, because the wind rattled a few more shingles off of the roof and the rain pounded onto what remained. The little house creaked and groaned with each gust of wind and Duo wished that there were storm shutters on the windows or plywood in the storage rooms, because he wasn’t positive that the glass was going to survive on a couple of them.

“I think Libra made less noise when we blew it up,” Duo looked nervously at the ceiling.

“It’ll pass soon,” Trowa said, putting their plates on the counter. He’d wash them later, when lightning wasn’t crashing all around them. “You’ve never been afraid of storms before.”

“I’ve never been stuck on a light station while the storm of the century decided to hit. I knew the weather was supposed to be bad, but not like this.” He got up from the table, starting to pace until Trowa reached out to stop him. He was drawn into a protective circle of arms and pulled close to the taller, stronger body.

“Hey,” Trowa said close to his ear; it made him shiver. “It’s going to be okay. I wouldn’t have brought us out here if the storm was going to be too dangerous. Sally and Une would leave the place empty before they put anyone in danger, least of all us. We’re not expendable anymore, remember?”

“I’m not scared,” Duo protested, aware that the pout didn’t help his case any. “I’m not a little kid who needs to be coddled, Trowa.”

“I know,” he said, “but you’re not an Earth kid either.”

“You’re not exactly one either. You’re almost as much of a colony brat as I am.”

“Ha. Maybe,” he drew back, looking down at Duo with a soft expression, “but I’m not the one jumping every time the house shakes.”

Duo glared, but there wasn’t much heat in it. “Shut up.”

Trowa smiled, shaking his head and leaning in to kiss Duo’s forehead. “Let’s get some candles and the lantern, just in case, and settle in for the rest of the storm. A movie is probably a bad idea, with the power flickering like this, but we can play strip poker.”

“Too cold for that.”

“Now you’re just being difficult,” Trowa hugged him again. Duo relaxed into it, letting out a soft chuckle, because he couldn’t be mad at Trowa. Not for something that he couldn’t control, like the weather. And truthfully, he _was_ being a little difficult. Fear did that to him.

He sighed heavily, leaning into Trowa. He needed a distraction, true, but he didn’t want to leave the comfort of Trowa’s embrace either. “How about we build a tent and you read to me?”

“That sounds like a good idea. And I think I saw some marshmallows in the pantry.”

“Get ‘em. I’ll go steal the blankets off of the spare bed.”

“Deal.”

Duo got not only the blankets, but also the pillows and some extra blankets stored in the second bedroom’s closet. For extra measure, he pulled the heavy quilt off of the larger bed in the master bedroom as well. It took some rearranging of the furniture—and there wasn’t much, beyond the couch, coffee table and a couple of ladder-back chairs—a full fifteen minutes fussing with the blankets, and a new log on the fire before he was satisfied. It was a small space, but with the quilt, pillows and Coleman lantern, it felt warm and cozy when they crawled in next to each other with the books they’d brought. Trowa lay down on his back and Duo curled up next to him, pulling another blanket up over their legs.

Marshmallows could wait.

“Better?” Trowa asked, wrapping his arm around Duo.

“As much as it can be,” he said, trying to ignore the freight train sound of the wind. At least he couldn’t see outside anymore, though the lightning continued to flash almost as steadily as the lighthouse itself, illuminating the room more brightly than the fireplace and lantern could do on their own.

“I’ve got Vonnegut, Kerouac and McCarthy,” Trowa offered. “Pick your poison.”

“You read the most depressing shit,” Duo said. It wasn’t the first time he’d said it. Wouldn’t be the last. “I brought books too. Asimov and PKD. Can we read one of those instead?”

“Which PKD?” Trowa asked, a little suspiciously. Duo didn’t blame him, since Dick’s work often skewed strange and unusual, but he wasn’t sure that a man who enjoyed _Slaughterhouse-Five_ had any room to judge.

“ _Electric Sheep_ and _Japed_.”

“Let’s go with _The Man Who Japed_.”

Duo handed the paperback to his boyfriend—it was water stained, yellowing and the pages were curled in places. Trowa settled it into his free hand with the skill of someone who read one-handed often and started reading in a low, soothing voice about the trouble that came with finding the head of a decapitated statue in one’s closet.

He wasn’t more than ten pages in when the power went out.

“I’ll check the lighthouse,” Trowa said, turning onto his stomach and crawling out of the makeshift fort. He gave Duo the book and took the lantern, offering a smile. “I’ll be quick. At least the tower is attached to the house.”

“No, it should be my turn,” Duo protested. “You checked earlier.”

“Too late. I’m already putting on my boots.”

Duo didn’t try to convince him, secretly grateful that Trowa was willing to do it. He hated feeling like a coward, but there was something about storms that made him uneasy even at the best of times. This was not even close to “best.”

He’d rather be back on the Lunar Base, locked up and at OZ’s mercy.

“Next time I’ll do it,” he promised, hoping that “next time” would come during the day and without rain. Trowa leaned back into the fort to give him a quick kiss.

“Deal.”

Huffing out a deep breath, Duo flopped onto his back and stared up at the pattern in the blanket hung not more than eight inches above his nose. It was a tartan made up of warm reds and browns made warmer by the flickering glow of the fireplace. Duo had the distant thought that he might have to find a scarf for Trowa in those colors. He smiled, allowing himself to be distracted—needing to be—by the image of Trowa standing on those damnable rocks by the shore, wearing a woolen peacoat and tartan scarf like he’d been born to these islands, the wind whipping his hair and making his cheeks turn red.

It suited him, these rocky little outcroppings, as surely as the sun and salvage ships in the Pacific suited Duo. Not the cold—never that—but the wind and the rain and the wildness hiding beneath the waves. Duo wondered if they could ever find a place that reflected them both, somewhere they could settle and make a life if they ever left Preventers.

He laughed softly. A life. Together.

There was something he’d never imagined having. When he was fifteen, he hadn’t expected to make it to sixteen, and now here he was contemplating the oh-so-normal concept of “settling down” with someone he loved at the ripe old age of twenty-three.

How the fuck had Heero and Len done it at barely eighteen?

(And hadn’t _that_ been a scandal, the Princess of Sanq, Vice Foreign Minister to the ESUN, eloping with her bodyguard to Monaco. Duo was more than a little proud of them for coming up with the idea on their own.)

The wind howled again and Duo shuddered as hard as the walls did, drawing the blankets up to his chin. He wasn’t entirely sure that he understood why Trowa volunteered them for this assignment, but he tried to convince himself that he wouldn’t have done it knowing what a clusterfuck the weather would turn out to be.

Getting away from HQ and everyone else was kind of nice though.

He jumped when the door to the breezeway into the lighthouse opened and Trowa came back in, muttering curses about how cold it was in the tower. After shedding his jacket and boots, he all but dove back into the warmth of the blanket fort and Duo laughed, vigorously running his hands over Trowa’s biceps.

“Everything was okay?”

“Yeah. Generator kicked in and the light’s still going strong. There’s a leak in the roof of the breezeway that we’ll have to fix tomorrow, but otherwise everything is fine.” He shivered and pulled Duo closer. “I suddenly understand why Preventers has such a hard time keeping this place staffed.”

“Is it really necessary?” Duo wondered, tucking his head beneath Trowa’s chin. “Everything runs itself and with modern sat-nav, ships don’t need the light.”

“Emergencies,” he said. “Nostalgia.”

“Hm. Probably more the latter than the other.”

“Probably.”

“I guess I get it though,” Duo said, twining their legs together and settling into a comfortable position against Trowa’s chest. “The nostalgia factor. I’m sure as hell the last person to judge anybody for holding onto the past.”

Trowa smiled, lifting a hand to run over Duo’s braided hair. “Kind of funny, really. Lighthouses are supposed to symbolize moving forward.”

“Are they?”

“Among other things.”

“Like what?” This was one of the things he loved about Trowa. He knew so many random facts about everything, picked up like souvenirs over the course of a lifetime and set out for display when he was feeling particularly... well...

Nostalgic.

Trowa hummed softly, turning onto his back again. Duo went with, cuddling against his side and draping himself partially over his chest so that he could look up into his face. He propped his chin up on his folded arms, smiling gently as Trowa’s face was cast in the orange firelight. It made his hair glow red and gold instead of plain brown.

“They represent strength and shelter—guiding lights in a storm. Hope. Direction. Destiny.”

Duo considered all of that. He’d spent a fair amount of time on ships during his time on earth, but he’d never heard any of the seamen he knew talk about lighthouses like that. Maybe it was because the Sweepers were less sailors than they were salvagers. Scavengers. To them, lighthouses were relics of the past only worth what they could sell for scrap.

They had never much understood why Duo held onto things like crosses and braids either.

“If that’s true,” he said quietly, “I suppose that makes you my lighthouse, doesn’t it?”

“Am I?”

“I think so,” Duo nodded, leaning up to kiss him. “My safe harbor, yeah?”

No wonder he thought this place suited Trowa.

Trowa palmed his cheek and kissed him back, slow and sweet. His fingers threaded into Duo’s braid at the base of his skull and although Duo wouldn’t have minded a little pulling, he was gentle, scratching at his scalp until the other man was practically purring. He pressed closer to Trowa, climbing on top of him until he was straddling slim hips and bracing himself with both hands on wide shoulders. Trowa’s free hand slid along his thigh, moving higher until it was working under his layers of shirts to touch soft, bare skin. Duo jerked away, gasping.

“Fuck, your hand is like ice.”

“So warm me up.”

Duo chuckled and reached for his hand, pressing it back underneath his clothes. He shivered until Trowa’s skin started to warm against his, and then shivered for other reasons when a thumb was stroked over his ribs.

“So? You wanna?” Duo asked, scattering kisses along Trowa’s jaw and throat. “Might be kinda hard under the tent.”

“We’ve done it in smaller spaces. Remember the MS transport we drove to St. Petersberg?”

“Mm. Yeah, that was fun.” He bit at a spot just below Trowa’s ear. “And I really don’t want to drag all of this back into the bedroom. Where the bed is probably frozen.”

Laughing, Trowa kissed him again. Duo was sure he’d never tire of hearing that sound, or of Trowa’s lips against his.

“Hey. I love you,” he said, feeling the words sit heavy in his chest, the way that they always did. All of the years between them couldn’t make it any easier to say, not after the conditioning of his youth. The things he loved tended not to survive.

Admitting it. Saying it. Those things tempted fate, but so far Trowa had stood proof against them.

Maybe he really was a lighthouse.

“I love you too,” Trowa echoed and it didn’t weigh as heavily this time.

Duo smiled, bringing a hand up to caress his cheek with the backs of his fingers. Trowa leaned into the touch, closing his eyes and sighing out a breath. The soft, happy expression on his face was one that made Duo’s heart beat faster. There had been a time when neither of them could have looked like that, though Duo had always been better at faking it.

Neither of them had to fake anything anymore.

Especially not with each other. They knew each other too well to even try.

They knew each other’s bodies well too, hands roaming and lips kissing. It was a struggle to undress each other in the tight space, but somehow they managed to get Trowa’s shirt and Duo’s pants off. Duo moaned softly, arching as Trowa’s hands stroked up the back of his thighs, his fingers rough and callused against soft, unblemished skin. He put his own, equally scarred hands upon Trowa’s chest, circling his thumbs over peaked nipples and tracing the lines of colored ink tattooed across his ribs. He’d always thought that the Venetian mask and Helenium flowers were beautiful, rendered in loving detail and colored to match Heavyarms.

He showed his adoration with each touch of his fingertips, with reverent kisses and the occasional flicker of his tongue. Trowa groaned beneath him.

“Duo, please.”

He nipped at Trowa’s belly. “Yeah. I know. We’re gonna have to switch places, babe. I can’t exactly ride you under here.”

“Right, right,” he muttered, gripping Duo’s hips as they struggled to turn over without tearing down the blankets or cracking elbows against furniture. “I’m not sure we thought out the logistics very well. Do you have lube?”

“Mm. In my bag.”

“Which is…?”

“Shit. Fuck. In the other room.”

“Yeah, mine too. Shit.” Trowa started to get up, but Duo grabbed his arm.

“Don’t you dare. Just… jack me off instead,” he said. It was a little disappointing to suggest, but he didn’t want Trowa’s warmth to leave him again. “And keep kissing me?”

“Like that’s a hardship.”

“Better not be.” He reached between them, finding and popping the button on Trowa’s jeans easily. The zipper was a little more difficult, but then he was sliding his hand inside of Trowa’s boxers and stroking his length. Giving him a squeeze, Duo smirked. “Mm. That’s nice and hard though.”

Trowa snorted in the middle of his moan. “Jesus, Duo. Really?”

“You think I’m gonna pass up a dick pun?” he grinned. “Now, c’mon. Me too. And fuckin’ _kiss_ me.”

“Pushy,” he commented, but kissed him anyway.

Duo didn’t stop being pushy. He shoved Trowa’s jeans and underwear down around his thighs so that he could grip him better. When Trowa finally wrapped a hand around his cock, he bucked into the touch, moaning appreciatively into his mouth as they kissed. Begging for more without saying a word, he curled one leg around Trowa’s hips and dug his fingers into short hair. Trowa kissed him harder. Took them both into one hand, rubbing slick, sensitive skin together until they were both gasping, desperate.

It wasn’t perfect, wasn’t exactly what either of them wanted, but the truth was that it didn’t really matter. Not when they were skin to skin, building each other up and then leaping off of the edge together.

When they had finished, it was too hot beneath the tent to rest comfortably. They wound up lounging on the floor in front of the fireplace, wrapped loosely in a blanket. The storm hadn’t died down by much, the wind still rattling the windows and the rain still pounding the roof, but Duo thought it was somehow more bearable in the afterglow. He fell asleep to the sound of Trowa reading, the crackling fire and the ever-more-distant rolling of thunder.

 

* * *

 

 

Morning brought with it gulls calling and the steady bleating of a foghorn. There was no sunshine, only a dull and dismal grey glow. Rain pattered lightly against the windows and roof. There was, however, the enticing smell of coffee and something involving cinnamon baking in the oven. It made the rest almost bearable.

Stiff and sore, Duo sat up—he’d forgotten how uncomfortable it was to sleep on hardwood floors—and looked at the figure standing in front of the windows, once again struck by just how well the storm-painted sky suited Trowa. His hair was damp from a shower and he’d pulled on fresh clothes—a pair of dark jeans that Duo loved and blue flannel over a grey tee—and he had a cup of that wonderful-smelling coffee clutched in both hands. He looked contemplative, almost serene. It was a good look for him, one that Duo had once feared he’d never see on the other man’s face.

“Hey,” he said softly, pushing himself up off of the floor. He was still without pants and the cool air nipped at his bare legs, but he ignored it in favor of slipping up behind Trowa and wrapping his arms around his waist. He pressed his cheek against Trowa’s shoulders, sighing. “How long have you been up?”

“Not too long,” he answered, sliding a hand over one of Duo’s. “Sleep okay?”

“Yeah. I didn’t think I would, but… yeah.”

“Me too. The power’s back on.”

“Mm. What’s in the oven? It smells good.”

“Cinnamon rolls. Sally supplied us really well this time.”

“I’ll send a card.”

“Duo.”

“What? I’m just kidding. You know I love Sally. Even when she sends us to godforsaken places like this. Hell, I still like you, even though you apparently volunteered us.”

Trowa set his coffee on the windowsill and turned in Duo’s embrace, looping his arms around him. “You know I wouldn’t have done it if I knew the weather was going to be this bad, right? I honestly thought this was going to be a good chance for us to get away from everyone at home.”

“I know,” Duo said, reaching up to palm his cheek. “And you’re right. It’s as close as a vacation as we can get without actually going on vacation. At least this way, no one is bugging us about paperwork and timetables and whatever other shit they’d keep throwing at us.” He pitched his voice higher, mocking, “‘Oh, Duo, I know you’re on vacation, but Une really needs these papers… I hope you’re enjoying the beach, but do you know what happened to the Leo we impounded from that group six months ago…’ Like what the fuck. How do you lose an entire Leo?”

“Probably the same way all those Leo parts ended up in our backyard.”

“I maintain that those were two different Leos.”

“I’m sure you do,” Trowa smirked.

“All the same,” Duo said, leaning up on his toes to kiss Trowa, “I still get to pick the next mission. How does the Caribbean sound?”

“Like you’ll have a hard time convincing anyone that it’s not a vacation.”

He shrugged. “I’ll find us a lighthouse during hurricane season.”

“Ah. No one will ever suspect.”

Duo grinned, running a hand over his mussed braid. He’d have to get Trowa to redo it for him after breakfast.

“Seriously, though,” he said, stepping closer to Trowa, “I’ve been thinking… how much longer are we going to stay with Preventers? We’re still young. Do you really want your entire life to be about fighting? Even if we’re the good guys now?”

“Fighting is all I’ve ever known,” he shrugged. “Cathy would be happy if I came back to the circus, but that’s not really where I belong. Except for her, I’ve always felt like an outsider there. I’ve never given much thought to what else I might do.”

“Neither have I,” Duo said honestly, “but maybe we should. I’m not sure that the kind of life where being stationed in the middle of the North Atlantic during a storm counts as vacation is the kind I really want anymore.”

“You’d be bored with a desk job.”

“I’m pretty sure there’s somewhere in between desk jockey and almost getting killed on a regular basis.”

Trowa nodded, turning his eyes back towards the outside. It was still grey and wet, the fog rolling high against the craggy rocks. “I wouldn’t mind going to school, I suppose. Une’s mentioned it before. Preventers would pay for it.”

“Would you write?” Duo asked, thinking of the battered journal.

He smiled. “Maybe.”

“Hey. We don’t have to decide anything right now,” he said softly. “I’m just thinking, that’s all. As long as I’m with you, it doesn’t really matter to me.”

“Kind of sounds like it does. And you’re right,” Trowa said, just as quietly. “We have spent most of our lives on someone else’s terms. First just surviving, then with the Gundams, now Preventers. Maybe it is time to start considering what it might be like to live for us.”

“I’m not even sure what that might be like.”

“Me either. Do you want to find out?”

“Together?”

Trowa leaned down to kiss him. “Always together.”

—END—


End file.
